All the conversation of my dear dying wife, for these twelve months
past, but especially as our difficulties and trials increased, was on
the peace she enjoyed in the Lord. Often and often she has said to me,
notwithstanding the disparity of every thing external, I never in
England enjoyed that sweet sense of my Lord's loving care that I have
enjoyed in Bagdad. And her assurance of her Lord's love never forsook
her, even after she felt herself attacked by the plague. While
contemplating the mysteriousness of the Providence, her mind was
overwhelmed; but when she thought on her Lord's love, she was
confident in his graciousness. From almost the first, her brain has
been so oppressed, that with difficulty she opens her eyes, and though
she can answer a question of two or three words, Yes, or No; yet, if
it involves the slightest exercise of thought, she always replies, "I
do not know what you say." When I consider all I and the dear children
lose, should we survive her, it is almost more than my heart can
contemplate. On any essential point, for some years, we have never had
divided judgment on any material point; in every work of faith, or
labour of love, her desire was to animate, not to hinder. Such simple
truth of purpose, and unaffected love, and confidence in her Lord, as
dwelt in her dear departing spirit, I have seldom seen, and those who
knew her intimately will not think I say too much. She has been to me
in the relation of Christian wife, and Missionary wife, just what I
felt I so much, so very much needed. And yet the Lord sees fit to take
her to himself, and add one more from my little family to the chosen,
faithful, and true company that surrounds his throne. Lord, then,
though it cuts nature to the quick, makes me feel its deepest
suffering, and meets me under the most complicated forms of trial, yet
if it be for thy glory, and her glory, do, dear Lord, thine Almighty
will, and we know thou wilt to thy chosen, make light spring up out of
darkness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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